Mr. Wodehouserose for the purpose of making a communication to the House on a subject connected with lord Suffield, the lord-lieutenant of the county of Norfolk. He should abstain from making any comment upon the documents which he was going to read, and should commence, as a matter of public duty, by reading a letter which he had yesterday received from lord Suffield. The hon. member then read the following letter:— "Gunton, Dec. 4. Dear Wodehouse,—I am exceedingly obliged to you for your letter of yesterday, in reply to which I beg leave to say, that I am not conscious of having acted with any partiality respecting the, insertion of gentlemen in the commission of the peace, of which I think the commission itself, with the additions made to it, affords pretty strong evidence. I recollect to have had some conversation with Mr. Coke at general Money's on the subject of the commission, but am not aware of a promise on my part to insert any gentleman Mr. Coke might name; nor, had I been so disposed, did Mr. Coke give me an opportunity, for I never had the honour of receiving an application 811 from him to that effect; and a list of names sent by Mr. Coke to the clerk of the peace, even supposing such a list to have been sent, could not be considered by me in that point of view. In reference to Mr. Coke's assertion, that gentlemen have been added to the commission by the lord chancellor, in consequence of my refusal, I believe the statement to be absolutely erroneous, and that no such circumstance has taken place since I have had the honour of being lieutenant of Norfolk. I think both yourself and colonel Wodehouse can vouch for my impartiality, as I have certainly declined some applications from both of you, when it did not appear to me there was a want of magistrates, or for other reasons. I am, &c. Suffield." He received this communication yesterday, and had intended to have laid it before the House last night, had not certain circumstances prevented him. In the interval, he had had an interview with the lord chancellor, who had informed him, that he had no recollection of the circumstances to which his hon. colleague had on a former night alluded. Since that period he had received the following letter from his lordship:—"Dear sir— The assistance with which the chancellor is favoured by the custodes rotulorum in selecting persons to be placed in the commission of the peace in different counties, of whose qualifications he cannot have personal knowledge, has established a habit of the chancellor's placing in the commission gentlemen recommended by them. But this is mere recommendation, however much to be respected; and if the chancellor doubts the propriety of placing any person so recommended in the commission, he acts upon his own judgment. If the custos rotulorum declines to recommend any gentleman applying to him to be so recommended, and that gentleman applies to the chancellor, the chancellor judges for himself whether he will place the name in the commission, not-withstanding the objection, generally, if not always, first communicating with the custos rotulorum upon the subject of the objection. I am not able to call back to my recollection the circumstances which may have taken place respecting the Norfolk matter, which has been mentioned. I have a faint recollection that some mention was some time ago made to me, by whom I cannot say, respecting the want of magistrates in some part of that county. What was done upon that 812 I cannot ascertain; but my secretary of commissions having; at my instance, looked into the correspondence and papers for ten years, as he informs me, finds nothing relative to the appointment of justices in that county, in which communication has not been had with lord Suffield. If any other person applied to me, I therefore suppose I must have communicated with lord S.; but the only way, perhaps, in which accurate information can be obtained, is by Lord S.'s inspecting the commission, and seeing whether any names have been therein inserted without communication with him, and on the other hand, Mr. C. should state the particulars to which he alluded. It is possible, though I do not recollect the fact, that I have been applied to, to place gentlemen in this commission not recommended by Lord S. I think it very improbable that I should have placed their names in the commission without observing the civility of communicating to lord S. that such application had been made to me, though, after such communication, I should of course have decided upon the matter as it appeared to me to be right, if there had been any difference of opinion. That there has been any such I do not recollect. It occurs to me to mention, that there are two matters which are exceptions to what is above stated. A gentleman who was recommended by the secretary of state was of course inserted in the commission, and I very lately mentioned the name of a clergyman to be inserted in the commission, whose name I understood, would be found in the next recommendation of the custos rotulorum. Your's, dear sir, Eldon.—P. S. Being informed, since I wrote the above, that Mr. C. stated that be had a personal interview with me upon the subject, I cannot doubt the accuracy of that gentleman's statement, though the fact has escaped my recollection."—He had now performed what he conceived to be his duty, though he thought it right, before he sat down, to corroborate that part of lord Suffield's letter, where allusion was made to himself personally: he could speak with the utmost confidence of the impartiality which lord Suffield had always displayed in the exercise of his official duties.
Mr. Cokerepeated, that in consequence of a declaration made to him at general Money's by lord Suffield, that he would insert in the commission of the peace the 813 names of such of his friends as he (Mr. Coke) should recommend, he had left Certain names at the office of the clerk of the peace for the county; and was afterwards informed that not one of the gentlemen whose names he had so left was appointed to the magistracy. Having made this application, as far as he could recollect, upon the most gracious declaration of lord Suffield, he was not a little surprised at the refusal which he experienced; and he therefore subsequently applied to the lord Chancellor for the same purpose. The lord chancellor advised him to make another application to the lord lieutenant; but under such circumstances as he had described, every body would see that such a proceeding was impossible. When, therefore, he came to town in the ensuing spring, he wrote to the lord chancellor on the subject, who appointed him a meeting in his private chamber in the House of Lords, where he had never been before, and where he had never been since. The lord chancellor told him, that he would turn the subject in his mind, for he was fully convinced that he (Mr. Coke) would not recommend any individual as a fit person to be appointed a magistrate who was unworthy of the situation. Whether lord Eldon had paid the lord lieutenant of the county the compliment of communicating with him on this point, he could not tell; but this he knew, that all the persons whom he recommended were within four months inserted in the commission, except, indeed, one hon. gentleman, now a member of the House. Whether the memory of lord Eldon had failed him, was not for him to determine: if it had, so much the worse for the suiters of the court in which his lordship presided. But he himself well recollected all these points. As to the impartiality which lord Suffield was said to display in the exercise of his magisterial duties, he must say that, for one, he doubted it. He firmly believed that several of the magistrates had merely been put into the commission for party purposes, and that several of his (Mr. Coke's) friends had been rejected merely because they were his friends. This was the kind of influence which would be exercised in all parts of the kingdom, if the present bills were to pass: it would be extended not only to the magistrates, but to the sheriffs in every county. He did not mean to say that it was extended so far at present; by no means: there had recently been a splendid 814 meeting of the freeholders of Norfolk at Norwich; and too much praise could not be given to the high sheriff of the county for his conduct on that occasion. He had there stated, that it was his firm opinion, that the government were themselves most strongly implicated in the events at Manchester [loud cries of Hear!] It was his opinion, and he could not change it. It was his opinion, because they set their faces against all inquiry, for fear, he supposed, of something coming out which would deeply implicate themselves. Having taken parson Harrison in London without a riot, they were determined to kick up a riot, rather than not have a reason for enacting measures like the present.
§ The Speakersaid, that before the conversation went any farther, he could not help pressing upon the notice of the House its irregularity, and the dangerous consequences which it might tend to produce. He ought, perhaps, to have stopped the hon. member who commenced it, but he was not aware of the length to which he would go. After he had allowed the hon. member to proceed through the whole of his statement, it would have been an act of gross injustice to have thrown any impediment in the way of the hon. member who had just sat down. He hoped the House would pardon him for saying, that the conversation had already gone far enough, and farther even than the most lax practice allowed. It was not, perhaps, necessary that their laws and regulations should always be observed to the letter; but unless the spirit of them was preserved, they would not be able to preserve their own dignity, or to carry on the business of the public with that celerity and regularity which was absolutely necessary.
§ The conversation then dropped.